A lot of American's might not know that the number one selling car in the large family sedan market (read, Australian performance market) is the Ford Falcon/Fairmont.
We've had them since 1960 and after we ditched the American built versions from 1960 to 1963 they became really nice cars...comfortable, reliable and reasonably powerful.
During the late 60's and early 70's we had like America did the horse power wars, which saw the Falcon come out on top of other Aussie made cars, mainly GMH and Chrysler model, with the 1971 XY Falcon GTHO Phase 3 which put out a whopping 390hp from it's 5.8litre Cleveland V8 and was capable of low 14 second 1/4miles and a top speed of over 150mph.
While this horse power war was wage the humble base model Falcon and it's up market Fairmont version where refined with the 1971 version having it's inline 6 cylinder stretched out to 4.1litres (250cu), which would remain like that till 1988.
This 6 cylinder while no power house made an honest 155hp and apart from receiving a Honda built Cross flow alloy head and electric ignition in late 1979 and EFI in 1982, has never really changed and has proven itself over countless miles as a rugged and reliable unit....same for the V8's which a lot of American are familiar with and know them as the Windsor which was used from 1966 to 1971 and the mighty Cleveland which powered V8 Falcons and Fairmont?s from 1970 to 1982.
Same can be said for the transmission and Differential, while the V8's where fitted with the famous Top loader 4spd or C4 and FMX 3 spd auto's and the beefy 9 inch diff, the humble six made do with a Borg Warner Single rail 4 spd or Borg Warner 35/40 3spd Auto and Borg Warner 78 series diffs, and like the 6 cylinder they are rugged and reliable.
In 1988 the Falcon was given a major overhaul and a completely new design was built.
This had improvement such as a 3.9litre OHC inline 6 which put out a nice 190hp, a T5 5spd Manual and a new BTR 4spd auto.
Since 1988 the Falcon has under gone a few changes including an increase in engine size from 3.9litre to 4litres, an EFI V8 was introduced in 1992, in 2002 the Falcon received a DOHC cylinder head and a Turbo was added to it's inline 6 to give 320hp, the V8 is now a mustang based 5.4litre DOHC which make 300hp in base form and 390 in Boss form.
The manual and automatic gearboxes are now both 6 spds making the Falcon a really refined car.
The Falcon itself is a well built and rugged car capable of handling any punishment that the Aussie outback can throw at it....except one little irritating thing...and this for me and many Ford Falcon owner's prevents the big Ford from being the perfect car.
Why oh why must we suffer these horrid door handles? We have engines and drivelines that can last over 600,000km's but these doors handle that break as soon as you glance sideways at them.
What makes matters worse their extremely difficult and painful to replace...nothing like be able to do a basic service of a Falcon in a hour or so, but take 2 or 3 hours to replace one bloody door handle...sure Ford could have figured out this problem back in 1972 when it first started occurring...but NOOOOO it still happens, even on 2006 Falcon's.
It bloody pisses me off that first I have to spend AU$20 on the handle and then cut the crap out of my hands to fit it...only to have it break 15 minutes later in exactly the same place that the one I took off did.
Figures...the perfect car may never exist...so close, yet so far.
Here is a picture of my rusty, but trusty 1986 Ford XF Falcon S Pack
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Stumps/DSC00457.JPG
specs :
4.1Litre (250cu) Inline 6 cylinder, rated at about 190hp (uprated Camshaft, exhaust system and EFI system)
3spd Borg Warner Model 40 auto
2.77:1 Borg Warner 78 series Diff
It's nothing special and has over 600,000 original kays on it but it still can crack 200km/h on a good day.
We've had them since 1960 and after we ditched the American built versions from 1960 to 1963 they became really nice cars...comfortable, reliable and reasonably powerful.
During the late 60's and early 70's we had like America did the horse power wars, which saw the Falcon come out on top of other Aussie made cars, mainly GMH and Chrysler model, with the 1971 XY Falcon GTHO Phase 3 which put out a whopping 390hp from it's 5.8litre Cleveland V8 and was capable of low 14 second 1/4miles and a top speed of over 150mph.
While this horse power war was wage the humble base model Falcon and it's up market Fairmont version where refined with the 1971 version having it's inline 6 cylinder stretched out to 4.1litres (250cu), which would remain like that till 1988.
This 6 cylinder while no power house made an honest 155hp and apart from receiving a Honda built Cross flow alloy head and electric ignition in late 1979 and EFI in 1982, has never really changed and has proven itself over countless miles as a rugged and reliable unit....same for the V8's which a lot of American are familiar with and know them as the Windsor which was used from 1966 to 1971 and the mighty Cleveland which powered V8 Falcons and Fairmont?s from 1970 to 1982.
Same can be said for the transmission and Differential, while the V8's where fitted with the famous Top loader 4spd or C4 and FMX 3 spd auto's and the beefy 9 inch diff, the humble six made do with a Borg Warner Single rail 4 spd or Borg Warner 35/40 3spd Auto and Borg Warner 78 series diffs, and like the 6 cylinder they are rugged and reliable.
In 1988 the Falcon was given a major overhaul and a completely new design was built.
This had improvement such as a 3.9litre OHC inline 6 which put out a nice 190hp, a T5 5spd Manual and a new BTR 4spd auto.
Since 1988 the Falcon has under gone a few changes including an increase in engine size from 3.9litre to 4litres, an EFI V8 was introduced in 1992, in 2002 the Falcon received a DOHC cylinder head and a Turbo was added to it's inline 6 to give 320hp, the V8 is now a mustang based 5.4litre DOHC which make 300hp in base form and 390 in Boss form.
The manual and automatic gearboxes are now both 6 spds making the Falcon a really refined car.
The Falcon itself is a well built and rugged car capable of handling any punishment that the Aussie outback can throw at it....except one little irritating thing...and this for me and many Ford Falcon owner's prevents the big Ford from being the perfect car.
Why oh why must we suffer these horrid door handles? We have engines and drivelines that can last over 600,000km's but these doors handle that break as soon as you glance sideways at them.
What makes matters worse their extremely difficult and painful to replace...nothing like be able to do a basic service of a Falcon in a hour or so, but take 2 or 3 hours to replace one bloody door handle...sure Ford could have figured out this problem back in 1972 when it first started occurring...but NOOOOO it still happens, even on 2006 Falcon's.
It bloody pisses me off that first I have to spend AU$20 on the handle and then cut the crap out of my hands to fit it...only to have it break 15 minutes later in exactly the same place that the one I took off did.
Figures...the perfect car may never exist...so close, yet so far.
Here is a picture of my rusty, but trusty 1986 Ford XF Falcon S Pack
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Stumps/DSC00457.JPG
specs :
4.1Litre (250cu) Inline 6 cylinder, rated at about 190hp (uprated Camshaft, exhaust system and EFI system)
3spd Borg Warner Model 40 auto
2.77:1 Borg Warner 78 series Diff
It's nothing special and has over 600,000 original kays on it but it still can crack 200km/h on a good day.
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